Little by little...
"I am beginning to learn that it is the sweet, simple things of life which are the real ones after all." - Laura Ingalls Wilder
As I sit here, thinking back on my first week of living in Jaco, I am honestly just in awe of God. Never in my life have I felt so blessed as I do right now. Each day is a reminder that the little things truly count and they make life what it is. Each little step, each little smile, each little thought...they are pure blessings.
I feel like even my senses have just increased even while being here. Sight, sound, smell, taste, touch...somehow God has give me the ability to feel even more. Just as I'm typing, I'm laying in a hammock, watching the lightning, listening to the thunder, smelling the smoldering smoke from a camfire next door. It's magnificent.
God has just blessed me with so many things, I feel like each day is a new surprise. The past few days, we've had the beautiful opportunity to begin working with kids in a place called "the River." It's just a small community located on the river banks running into the ocean. The kids are phenomenal. Already I've come to love them. Emily and I have also been able to start a collection of artwork they've drawn us and we have a nice collage on our wall. A typical day involves being jumped on, hugged until you can't breath, carrying around and holding the most beautiful children in the world while sweat is pouring out of you, smiling, laughing, playing silly games, trying to communicate in Spanish, drawing strange looking animals on pieces of paper for the kids to color, screaming at the top of your lungs, laughing, helping with homework (somehow, I managed to help a little girl with her Spanish homework...I think I learned more than she did!) and just generally having fun and being silly. I can't explain how much I love it. When I'm in those situations, I can't see anything past the kids that are in front of me. The world stops and I just get to love, love, love and recieve lots of love in return. It's great...I almost want to say it's magical. I can't think of any other way to describe it.
Other than the blessing of being able to spend time with those kids, there are many other blessings as well. After a hot day of walking about 3 or 4 hours in extreme heat, Emily and I talked about how there was nothing we would like better than to be laying in a pool, on an inflatable raft, drinking smoothies. By the end of the day, we had drank an amazing smoothie, lounged in our leaders beautiful pool and had some great conversation. God truly goes above and beyond my expectations. Every day, some new, small blessing appears that knocks my socks off.
Right now I feel like this time is all about capturing moments. It's about realizing that the smallest things can make the biggest difference. I have to remember that not only for my everyday life, but also in what I am looking for God to do through ministry and love. The smallest things, like playing in the mud with a child, can do such a great thing in the long run. Little by little, we are changing lives and making a difference in the world. Nothing is too little to go unlooked. The littlest things can produce the biggest changes.
So, what am I, what are you, doing with the little things, with the moments?
"All great things are only a number of small things that have carefully been collected together." - Anonymous
"We can not do great things. We can only do little things with great love." - Mother Teresa
The past two weeks have been full of excitement. It started off with a beautiful graduation dinner from our school. We went out to a Peruvian restaurant, played some games afterwards and then said our goodbyes. It was a great night, but sad knowing that it was the end of this rough, challenging, intense but amazing school.
The next nine days I spent back home in Indiana. It was a last minute ordeal, so I had the chance to surprise family and friends. I really enjoyed every minute I had at home, relaxing and hanging out with my parents. It was just what I needed before I headed back into these next few months of my life. Which leads me to...
Jaco. I came back to Costa Rica on Sunday night. Yesterday morning, we loaded up a van (literally loaded because we had so many bags) and moved down to Jaco, Costa Rica. It's a beach town about two hours outside of San Jose and where I will be living for at least the next three months. Emily and I walked into our new apartment and could barely contain our excitement. We have a mini kitchen with cabinets, a sink and refigerator (which I was able to make ice cubes in and drink cold water). We also have a little loft with a mattress that Emily has made her home in. I'm sleeping downstairs on a nice, big mattress, right next to our very own bathroom! We also have air conditioning...which in Jaco is one of the biggest blessings you could possibly get. We decorated the room and now it feels super "homey" and wonderful.
Our outreach is just beginning. We've had a couple meetings so far just to talk about what we will be doing. The place we are living has a skate ministry and Bible study each week. We will be opening the skate ramp everyday so the kids can come and skate. We are also looking into working everyday at an after school program in the area. Opportunities are opening up and I'm excited! Now I just need to work harder on my Spanish. :)
Speaker: Barbara Ruegger
Topic: Attachment
It’s our last and final day of lectures. I can hardly believe we are finished. At the beginning, it seemed like this day would never come. Now I feel like it has come too fast. This last week our topic was attachment and attachment disorders. It’s a really interesting and useful topic, something I didn’t know much about before. There are an estimated 800,000 children in the United States that have attachment disorder. That’s a huge amount for just one country. One of the things we have learned this week is that attachment disorder is a fairly new concept and seems to be highly overlooked. Many kids that are struggling or exhibit violent behavior could have attachment disorder, but often we just put them off as “bad children.”
Attachment is defined as the affectionate tie between two people. This is a normal thing and it shows how a child will form future relationships. Attachment disorder happens when individuals have trouble forming lasting relationships. Usually it occurs when they don’t have anyone consistent in their lives as a child or have been abused. We watched a disturbing movie this week about a young, 5-year-old girl who had been sexually abused by her father when she was only a year old. A family had adopted her and her younger brother, but there were many problems with her. She abused her little brother and tried to kill him several times, once by repeatedly slamming his head into a cement floor. She was stealing knives from the kitchen and planning to kill someone. The parents had to lock her in her room at night so she wouldn’t harm anyone. Remember…this is a five year old girl. They interviewed her in the movie and it was sad to see the hollowness in her. She had no emotion, no feelings. Thankfully, the adopted parents sent her somewhere to get help. Her life completely changed, she was able to heal and even began going to church.
To me, it was such a shock that young children could be that emotionless and even want to kill. While this is an extreme case, there are many children still affected by this disorder and are not getting the help that they need. If we are working with kids, we need to start realizing that this could be the cause of why they are acting up. If we find out the real reasons, instead of just assuming, we can do so much more for the child and help them in greater ways.
If you're interested in seeing a touching, challenging, inspiring video...check this out:
Posted by
Amanda
4:47 PM
This past week, I did a teaching on encouraging children in their creativity. Helping kids express themselves, especially through creative outlets, is something I'm very passionate about. Kids are dreamers, full of imagination and unknown possibilities. I think it's a beautiful thing and as adults we can learn a lot from them. I found a couple links talking about child creativity, with some ideas for how to encourage it.
Here's what I found: It's the doing that counts
Fostering Creativity
Teaching Creativity
Also, this is our last week of classes and we are discusses attachment disorders. It's an interesting topic and something that many people aren't aware of. As we have been discussing this week, many kids are affected by it and if we are aware of it then we can help them in greater ways. Attachment is defined as the affectionate tie between two people. Attachment disorder is the condition in which individuals have trouble forming lasting relationships. I think it's possible that we have all come in contact with children/adults that have attachment disorder. It would be a really great thing to educate ourselves on this disorder, especially if working with kids.
If you would like to read more about it, here's a great website: Attachment.org
Posted by
Amanda
4:39 PM
I have never liked video games really. For all those people that enjoy them, I am sorry but I do not. I feel like they are a mindless waste of time, most of them being violent and disturbing. They desensitize you, making murder and grotesque images a normal part of life. Now, I have found a new reason to dislike them. I recently read that they have come out with a video game in Japan that is all about raping, assaulting and molesting women. You can even choose to impregnate a woman and then force her to have an abortion. The motive for this game is revenge.
Wow.
It's no wonder that things like prostitution, human trafficking and rude sexual behavior are running rampant in this world today. What makes us think these things are okay?
I can't wrap my mind around the fact that games like this exist. It's bad enough that things like this actually happen in our world--maybe this is the reason why. In the article, it debates whether or not these kinds of games should be banned. In my mind, I wonder how that is even a debate.
I'm almost speechless. I can't find any words to say. It makes me sad, angry, frustrated that women are used like that...and for what? Revenge. It makes me upset that people place no value on human lives and that video games are just reinforcing that. How is this happening?
Here is the article: RapeLay Video Game
Friday was our last local outreach for our school and there were sad faces all around. We went to Metro Ministries and hung out with the same kids from last week. We started off playing “Duck, Duck, Goose” with the kids again and then started another game of “Red light, Green light.” I just love the excitement of the kids. They were thrilled with whatever game we were playing and got so into it. The little girls were always grabbing my arm and rattling off in Spanish (so of course, I just smiled and nodded and giggled). For our program, we were able to share several testimonies and play some fun games with them. Scott, the leader of Metro Ministries, told them it was our last week there and we wouldn’t be coming back. After that, many of the kids were just sitting with us crying. I feel like it’s one of the hardest parts of only doing short-term ministry. You get very attached to the kids and they get attached to you. Then, three months later you’re leaving and you find yourself not wanting to. It’s especially hard when it’s such amazing, beautiful kids full of life and joy. It’s like, in those two hours of ministry time, you forget everything else in the world exists except you and those kids. You just give them love and pour yourselves into them. It’s hard to leave them. But, the excitement is knowing that I get to spend so many more months living in Jaco and spending everyday with the kids there. I will get to know them so much more intensely and I know they will steal my heart just as much as the other kids I have worked with.
On Saturday night, a few of us went to Jaco again. Since our speaker this past week was teaching about human trafficking, we went with her to observe the nightlife. We headed downtown around midnight and were shocked by how busy it was. There was an amazing amount of people on the streets and about twice as many prostitutes. Ro told us that she started counting the prostitutes, but had to stop once she hit 50 because there were just too many to count. And that was only including the women that were on the street, in plain sight. As we were walking down the street, we passed an old man—probably in his 70’s—with a young prostitute who couldn’t be more than 18 or 19 years old. They were laughing and talking. It was such an odd sight. The amount of men that were on the streets was unbelievable. There were old men, young men, men from all over the world, locals…any kind of man you could imagine basically. I have a feeling I will have a hard time liking men while I am living there. Anyways, it looks like outreach will be a challenge, but I know I will learn a lot. I’m truly excited for what is going to happen in Jaco. It will definitely be an adventure!
